


A Cheerful Giver

by Zelofheda



Category: Daredevil (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-12
Updated: 2015-10-19
Packaged: 2018-04-26 02:16:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 17,532
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4986205
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zelofheda/pseuds/Zelofheda
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Foggy inherits the family healing gift from his dying grandmother, but someone from an alternate universe wants to use that gift to keep their version of Daredevil alive -- so they can torture him again and again.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Foggy put his phone down and went to stand in the doorway of Matt’s office. “Hey, Matt, you wanna come visit my family this weekend? It’s kind of a big occasion and I’d like you to be there with me.”

Matt lifted his head, his interest piqued, and looked in Foggy’s direction. “What’s the occasion?”

“So, my grandmother’s going to die, but before she goes, she wants to give me her gift.”

“Oh,” Matt said, and his face turned serious. “I’m so sorry, Foggy. Are you two … close?”

“Close enough, I guess,” Foggy replied. “We talk sometimes. I mean, she’s got a few other grandkids, you know, so I was surprised when she said she’d chosen me for the gift, but, hey, maybe it’s my good looks and charm at work, even from a distance. So, please come? There’ll be food.”

“I don’t know,” Matt hedged. “It sounds like a family thing. I don’t want to intrude.”

“Matt, you’re practically family and you wouldn’t be intruding. And like I said, I want you to be there with me. Getting the gift is a big deal.” Foggy watched Matt’s face for any sign that he was weakening, and almost cheered when Matt’s expression softened. 

“What, uh, what gift are we talking about?” Matt asked, curious.

“The family healing gift,” Foggy explained. “Grandma’s giving it to me.”

Matt was silent, so Foggy explained. “She can heal people just by laying her hands on them. Just by touching them, actually. She says she got it from her grandmother.”

“Like a faith healer?” Matt looked and sounded sceptical.

“More like something out of a video game or a movie,” Foggy said. “It’s really cool.”

“Uh huh.”

“Maybe you have to see it to believe it.” Foggy hesitated. “I mean, experience it.”

“Good catch, Foggy.” Matt grinned, and Foggy grinned, too. “So you’re coming?”

“If you’re sure I won’t be intruding,” Matt said.

“You won’t be intruding, and even if you were, which you won’t be, I want you there, so there,” Foggy finished. “So you’re coming.”

+++++

Foggy’s grandma lived with one of Foggy’s uncles, and there were already several members of the extended family in the apartment when they got there.

“Hi, Aunt Jean,” Foggy said. “Hi, Uncle Ray.”

“Foggy!” his uncle said. Normally, he would have boomed his words, now he was more subdued. “And who’s this? Is it the legendary Matt we’ve heard so much about?”

Matt smiled his quick, embarrassed-but-pleased smile. “I’m not legendary, but yeah, I’m Matt.”

“Nice to meet you.” Uncle Ray grabbed Matt’s hand and pumped it before Foggy could tell him to at least announce he was going to shake hands. Aunt Jean did the same. “It’s so nice to finally meet you. We’ve heard nothing but Foggy and Matt this, and Foggy and Matt that.”

“Matt That,” Uncle Ray almost laughed. “You’re a poet who doesn’t know it, Jean.”

Everybody chuckled a bit despite the solemnity of the occasion. Just then, Foggy’s parents came out of the bedroom just then, both of them looking sad and even teary-eyed. His mom hugged Foggy tightly. “Oh, Foggy, I heard the news. Are you sure you want this?”

“Hey, she wants to give it to me, she must have a reason,” Foggy said, and hugged his father, both of them silent. 

His mother moved on to Matt, touching him lightly on the shoulder. “Matt? Can I hug you?”

“Sure, Mrs Nelson,” he said, opening his arms. Foggy was glad to see that she didn’t squeeze him as tightly, and even gladder to hear her say, “You can call me Anna, you know.”

“Anna,” Matt repeated.

“And I’m Edward,” Foggy’s dad said. “Come on, let’s have a hug.”

“Be careful, Edward, don’t break him,” Foggy’s mom said.

“He’s no Foggy, but he’s not a toothpick, either,” Foggy’s dad said as they embraced. “Are you, Matt?”

“Uh,” said Matt, which made them all laugh again. Then Foggy’s dad let him go and stepped back, his face becoming serious again. “Foggy, she wanted to see you as soon as you came.”

“Okay,” Foggy said. “Come on, Matt.”

“I’ll stay out here,” Matt offered. “Unless you really want me there.”

“I really want you here,” Foggy said, and stepped over to offer his arm. “Come on.”

They went into the bedroom. Foggy’s grandma was sitting up in her bed, looking as lively and chipper as he’d ever seen her, and gave him a big happy smile, so different from all the relatives in the other room. “Franklin!”

“Grandma!” Foggy bent over and gave her a gentle little hug. “You look good!”

“Well, I should hope,” she replied. “I’ve got a lot of people I’m looking forward to seeing again. And speaking of people, is that Matt?”

“Yeah, this is Matt.” Foggy tugged him forward a few steps, and Matt held out one hand, but his grandmother didn’t take it, only frowned. After the awkward moment, Matt retrieved his hand and stepped back again.

“I can see why I knew you were the one,” she said very solemnly. “You’ll have your hands full with him.”

“I already do,” Foggy said, shaking his head for emphasis.

“Well, then, no time like the present,” Grandma Nelson announced, enthusiastic again. “Come here and let’s get on with it. You might want to kneel down so I can reach your head.”

Foggy knelt down at the side of the bed and laid his head in his grandmother’s lap. “Is this okay?”

She ran her fingers along his head. “Harry had hair like this, though he never wore it long. Well, not here on earth, anyway. So beautiful. Probably even more beautiful now that he’s an angel. But enough babble, I’m anxious to get going.”

“Any last minute instructions?” Foggy asked.

“You’ll know what to do,” she said. “You’ll feel it. Use it well. I trust you.”

Then she was silent and her hands became still. Foggy waited, and after a moment, he felt a kind of pinprick in the space between her hands. Then there was a sensation of hot wind, blowing in through the tiny hole, turning into warmth that spread through his entire body. After that, there was nothing else, and when Foggy felt his grandmother’s hands relax, he lifted his head gently. Her hands slid away and fell to her sides, and when he looked at her face, her eyes had closed. All the animation had drained out of her face and she looked so much older than he had ever imagined. For a moment, he wasn’t even sure it was the same woman.

“Grandma?” Foggy asked, his voice already choking up and tears coming to his eyes. He stayed where he was for a long moment, just staring at her, but then he began to be aware of Matt, standing reverently behind him. The awareness became acute, almost physical, and he turned around, practically expecting to see Matt glaring daggers at him even though that was impossible. But Matt’s head was bowed and his lips were moving silently; he didn’t even seem to notice Foggy.

“Amen,” Matt finally whispered, just loud enough for Foggy to hear, then he crossed himself and lifted his head. “Foggy, I’m so sorry.”

“Thank you,” Foggy replied automatically, blinking. Two tears ran down his cheeks, but he ignored them. There was something stirring inside him, something that made him raise his hand and slowly reach out for Matt’s face. “Matt … you’re injured again, aren’t you?”

“I’m fine,” Matt replied, a little too quickly for Foggy’s liking. Foggy touched the side of his face and caught his breath in surprise.

“No, you’re not, you idiot! You’re hurt! It’s your … ribs … again … and your shoulder?” Foggy guessed. He was almost as aware of Matt’s body as he was of his own, though it didn’t hurt; he simply sensed a wrongness in specific areas. Matt tried to step away, but Foggy caught the back of his neck. “Relax, buddy, it’s okay. I can help you. Just don’t run away, okay?”

Foggy closed his eyes and concentrated, wanting to heal Matt, but not quite knowing how. But as his grandmother had promised, he felt the warmth rise up in him, going down his arm and into his hand, and passing from his fingertips into Matt’s skin. The urgency inside him faded, and eventually the warmth faded, too. He opened his eyes.

“Wow,” Matt breathed, and Foggy laughed a little. “Yeah. Wow. Pretty cool, huh? Or … pretty hot?”

“Kind of warm, actually,” Matt said. “I – uh – I didn’t believe you could do that, but I – I actually felt … something. And now it doesn’t hurt anymore.”

“Don’t Catholics believe in healing by the laying on of hands?” Foggy asked, then felt his knees start to tremble. “No, you know what? Let’s have this conversation later. I, uh, I think I need to sit down.”

They went back out into the living room, where Foggy’s mother immediately jumped up and guided him to her chair. He sank down and heaved a sigh, then jumped when his father pushed a paper cup into his hands.

“Just juice,” he said. “You can have the heavy stuff later if you want. Matt, you want a drink, too? I’ll get you something.”

As Matt sat down next to him, Foggy drank, and felt better immediately. “Thanks.”

“So you’ve used the gift already?” That was Uncle Ray, suddenly hovering over him. “I was going to ask you to heal my diabetes, but that’ll have to wait until you recover, I guess.”

Foggy glanced up in alarm. “Sorry, yeah, I’ve already used it. Matt, uh, fell down the steps when he was taking out the trash, and bruised his shoulder.”

“Ray, don’t pester the boy with your diabetes. Your mother already did what she could for you, several times,” Aunt Jean put in. “You know it wouldn’t keep coming back if you’d do what she told you.”

“Huh,” Uncle Ray muttered, but he moved away from Foggy, going straight into the kitchen. Probably to get a snack, Foggy thought. He could use a snack himself, and maybe a nap, too.

“Hey, Aunt Jean?” he asked. “Can I get something to eat?”

“I’ll get you something,” his mom said, and his father followed her into the kitchen.

“It’ll take a while for you to get used to it,” Aunt Jean said, and Foggy nodded. “Yeah, I guess so.”

“Just do what feels right,” she went on. “That’s what she always said. Except when she was talking to Ray. Then she always said, Make sure you eat right, then I won’t have to make you right.”

Foggy smiled sleepily. As his eyes fell shut, he could tell he was going to have as much trouble with Matt as his grandmother had had with Uncle Ray.


	2. Chapter 2

On Monday, Foggy wasn’t surprised to sense Matt’s injuries even before he walked in the door.

“Hey, Matt, how you doing?” he asked.

“Hey, Foggy, I’m fine,” Matt said.

“No, you’re not, and do you know how I know? Because my spidey-sense is tingling.” Foggy came up behind Matt and reached for the collar of Matt’s coat. “Here, let me help you get your things off.”

But Matt, probably perceiving Foggy’s plan of touching him on the neck and healing him before he knew what hit him, quickly turned to face him. “Spidey-sense, Foggy?”

“It sounds cooler than healing-sense. Or in your case, pain-sense. Come on, get over here.” Foggy reached out, and tried to make his voice sound low and ominous. “My gift _knows,_ Matt. It _wants_ to heal you.”

“You don’t have to,” Matt said.

“Actually, yes, I do.”

“What doesn’t Foggy have to do?” It was Karen, coming in.

“Matt tripped and bruised his knee.” Foggy didn’t mention all the other bruises he could sense on his best friend’s body. “I want to use my new healing gift on him.”

“Healing gift?” Karen looked dubiously at him and then at Matt. “What, like in the Bible?”

“Yup,” Foggy said. “Exactly like in the Bible. I got it from my grandma. All I have to do is lay my hands on Matt—“ he reached out, grabbed Matt’s hand, and practically shot the healing warmth into Matt’s skin, which made Matt gasp and pull away in surprise –“and he’s healed. Right, Matt?”

“I thought you had to lay hands on his head,” Karen said, and Matt replied, “I didn’t know you knew the Bible, Karen.”

“I only remember a little bit from Sunday School,” she replied, grimacing a little.

“Well, apparently, I only need skin contact,” Foggy explained. He felt the sudden exhaustion that he’d felt on Saturday, and wanted to go sit down, but he held his ground. “Cool, huh?”

“I guess.” Karen didn’t look convinced.

“Come on, roll up your pant leg, show her your beautiful, not-bruised knee,” Foggy said to Matt. He was getting hungry again, too, despite the fact that he’d just had breakfast less than an hour ago.

“Well, since I didn’t see the ‘before’ picture, the ‘after’ picture isn’t going to prove anything,” Karen said.

“She’s got a point,” Matt said.

“Well, next time Matt shows up with a black eye, I’ll wait until you’ve seen it before I give it my new Nelson healing touch,” Foggy replied. “Hey, Matt, since you’ve still got your coat on, how about you run out and buy me a bagel or something, huh? Right now, I’m going to drink some coffee with lots of sugar because I’m so hungry I’d probably starve to death on my way down the stairs, before I even got to the food.”

Matt frowned a little, but to Foggy’s surprise, he changed his frown to a smile and said, “Sure, Foggy.”

“Didn’t you have breakfast?” Karen asked.

“Healing makes me hungry. Takes all my energy,” Foggy replied. To Matt’s retreating back, he called, “Thanks, buddy, I owe you!”

Then he walked slowly to his desk and plopped down in his chair. The next thing he knew, Karen was shaking him awake. “Hey, Foggy, wake up, you’ve slept almost two hours and you’ve got a client. Matt says to eat something as fast as you can and meet them in the conference room.”

The next day, Matt was at the office before Foggy arrrived, already seated at his desk. When Foggy approached his open door, he held up a hand. “Don’t even think it. You can’t afford to sleep the entire morning away again.”

“It wasn’t the entire morning,” Foggy said. “It was only two hours. And I didn’t miss all that much anyway.”

Matt frowned. “I’m not really hurt, anyway. Just a few bruises. Less than yesterday, and it will all heal on its own. It’s not worth knocking you out like that.”

“I can see your point,” Foggy said, “but I can still tell you’re hurting. By the way, I’m calling my spidey-sense the Murdockmeter now.”

“The Murdockmeter?” Matt sounded slightly amused.

“Yeah, and on a scale from one to ten, you’re –“ Foggy hesitated, then decided. “Maybe a four. I’ll need to get some more readings so I have something to compare it with.”

“I’m at one point five,” Matt insisted. “One point six, maximum. And I’m not letting you touch me until I’m up to at least four. I can handle it, Foggy. Really.”

“You know, maybe if you didn’t go out every night, we could get this into some kind of work-friendly schedule. Let’s say Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. And every other Saturday,” Foggy suggested. “Then I’ll only have to heal you at work on Tuesdays and Thursdays , and we can schedule our clients around my recovery time. Win-win!”

But that made Matt frown even more. “Like I said, Foggy, you don’t have to do this every time, especially if it knocks you out for hours afterwards. I can take a little pain.”

Foggy sighed, and was about to protest again when Matt added, “Please, Foggy.”

Foggy threw up his hands in defeat. “All right, Matt, but only because you said ‘please.’”

It was hard for him to work next to Matt that morning, able to sense his friend’s pain but not being allowed to do anything about it. Foggy also noticed that the closer he got to Matt, the more he wanted to reach out and heal him. In fact, the need became noticeably stronger as the day went on. His hands began to twitch, only occasionally at first, but then more and more, and he stopped being able to concentrate on anything else except wanting to reach out. Finally, he just couldn’t take it any longer, and marched into Matt’s office.

“Foggy—“ Matt started to protest, but Foggy grabbed his left hand away from Matt’s refreshable braille display and let his healing power flow through Matt’s skin, gripping tightly when Matt tried to pull away. When the warmth ebbed, he let go and looked down at the floor.

“Sorry, Matt,” he said. “I couldn’t stop myself. All I could think of all day was that you were hurt and I wanted to help you. My hands were twitching! I had the feel for heal!”

“The feel for heal?” Matt repeated. Coming out of his lips, it sounded ridiculous, and Foggy cringed inwardly. Had he really said that? He floundered for an explanation. “Yeah, you know, like the need for speed, or—or roid rage or something like that. I had to do it, Matt!”

“I don’t want to say thank you, because I specifically told you not to,” Matt admitted. “But it does feel better.”

“I don’t,” Foggy realized, his heart sinking at what his action would mean. “I feel worse, knowing that you’re going to go out again to-night and undo all my good work.”

Matt grimaced a little. “Sorry. But as you say yourself, I have to do it.”

Foggy let his shoulders slump. “I guess I understand it a little better now, but I still hate it.”

“I know,” Matt said with a little sigh. “I know.”

He paused, then said quietly, “Good thing we don’t have clients this afternoon, huh?”

“You know, I don’t remember my grandma being asleep all the time,” Foggy said. “Maybe she got stronger as she went along, didn’t use up so much energy.”

“Maybe,” said Matt. “But for now, why don’t you go rest? I’ll wake you up when it’s time to go home.”

“Thanks,” Foggy said, and walked towards the door. Before he reached it, Matt said, “Thank you, Foggy.” 

The next day, Foggy noticed his Murdockmeter suddenly increase in intensity, and came out of his office expecting to see Matt arrive. Instead, it was Karen, limping heavily.

“Hey, what happened to you?” Foggy asked, rushing forward to give her a hand.

“I twisted my ankle,” she said. “Practically tore the heel off my shoe, too.”

“I don’t think it’s just twisted, I think you sprained it,” Foggy said. “It feels pretty wrong for just a twist.”

“That’s kind of creepy that you can tell,” she said, letting him guide her to her seat while slipping her coat off. “Are you going to become a kind of vigilante, too, go running around at night healing people? Will you dress in white Spandex with a big red cross on your chest and swing in through hospital windows?”

“No way,” Foggy said, laughing at the idea. “I’d scare people to death if I wore white Spandex. Or any colour of Spandex, actually. Not to mention I’ve got to save the healing energy for Matt, and you, and my many relatives.” He reached out hesitantly. “Um – can I?”

“Sure,” she said, and he placed his hand over hers, letting the warmth flow out.

“It really works,” she exclaimed, standing up to try it out. Her heel wobbled, and she almost fell, but Foggy caught her. “That’s amazing!”

“Sorry I can’t do your shoe as well, but maybe we have some superglue in here somewhere?” Foggy suggested, holding her until she’d steadied herself. She was thinner than Marci, but Foggy didn’t mind the difference. He wondered if she ever compared his body to Matt’s, and whether she minded the difference.

“I don’t think we do, but I can run out on my lunch break and get some,” Karen said. “Or I can just buy a new pair of shoes. These were getting old anyway.”

“I’d offer to get you new shoes, but I’d probably pick out something that you hate,” Foggy said. “But I can get the superglue, because I don’t want you going out and twisting your ankle again the minute I’ve got it healed. In fact, I can go right now and be back in half an hour.”

“Thanks, Foggy,” Karen said, and gave him a smile. “But don’t you have to sleep it off first?”

Foggy considered. “I don’t feel especially tired. Maybe healing you isn’t as strenuous as healing Matt.”

“I thought he just bruised his knee yesterday,” Karen said. “There shouldn’t be that much difference between a bruised knee and a sprained ankle. I’d think the ankle would be worse.”

“Well, maybe I’m getting used to it already, building up my strength.”

“That’d be good.” Karen smiled, and Foggy smiled with her.

“So, we’ve still got time for me to run to the store quickly, anything else you need while I’m out?”

“Nope, can’t think of anything. Though I was wondering …” She let her voice trail off before asking, “Can you heal yourself?”

Foggy thought about it. “I don’t think so. Maybe a little. Grandma didn’t say.”

“You could try it out with something small, like a papercut,” Karen suggested, just as Matt came in. 

“Yeah, maybe when I get back,” Foggy said. He knew without even looking that Matt’s face was bruised, and not only his face.

“Where are you going?” Matt asked.

“To get some superglue.”

“Why do we need superglue?”

“To glue you to your chair so you don’t have any more accidents,” Foggy told him, which made Matt frown and Karen laugh. “Which, by the way, I can sense. As you know. So don’t tell me – you walked into the door of a cabinet that you left open?”

“Wasn’t watching where I was going,” Matt replied in his self-deprecating way.

“You know, we’ve got to put those cabinets behind bars, they’re dangerous elements in the kitchen,” Foggy said. “But, Matt, your bruises will have to wait until I get back with that glue.”

“It’s for my shoe,” Karen explained. “I almost broke the heel off it, and sprained my ankle. Foggy’s just going to run out quickly before nap time.”

“Hey, it isn’t a nap,” Foggy protested. “It’s R&R – rest and recovery. And I might not even need it to-day. I think I’m getting the hang of this healing gift now.”

He went out and noticed that he had to be a good fifteen paces away from Matt before his Murdockmeter faded to zero. Coming back, he found it picked up again at approximately the same area. Awkward, since there was no place in the office he could retreat to that was that far away from Matt, but good to know nonetheless. And after he’d healed Matt, he tried the papercut experiment that Karen had suggested, but it didn’t work. Well, he thought, at least he was getting better at not falling asleep ...

The next thing he knew, Karen was shaking his shoulder and saying something about his snoring amusing their clients.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And if your Zelmeter is tingling, please give in and leave a comment! We'll all feel better if you do! :-)


	3. Chapter 3

On Thursday, it was Foggy’s grandmother’s funeral. Matt tried to give him the entire day off, but Foggy felt guilty about having slept so much in the office that week, and went in for the morning anyway. Naturally, Matt was hurt, and naturally, Foggy healed him. To his delight, he didn’t fall asleep immediately afterwards, but he did feel distinctly lacking in energy until almost noon. It was an effort to even speak, let alone get anything done, but he muddled through. At his parents’ house, though, he discovered that his father had dropped a hammer on his head, and instead of going to the doctor, he had come home to wait for Foggy.

“Dad, how did you drop a hammer on your head?” Foggy asked.

“Just doing a little do-it-yourself around the store,” his father replied. He owned a hardware store, and some of Foggy’s cousins worked there, too. At least one of them had his eye on an eventual buy-out, but Foggy’s father showed no signs of even wanting to retire. “I was pounding in a nail above my head, hit my thumb, and just reacted, you know?”

The reaction had sent the claw-end of the hammer into his scalp. Foggy winced when he saw the blood staining the grey hairs dark red, and took his father’s hand in his. The healing went quickly.

“There, Edward, now go wash your hair quickly or we’ll be late,” Foggy’s mother chided.

“I’m sure Mom would understand,” his father muttered as he went off to the bathroom.

“Your mother might, but not everybody else would.” Foggy’s mom sighed, but then she glanced over to Foggy and smiled. “And how are you getting along?”

“Matt needs healing every day,” Foggy reported, sinking down onto the couch. His mother seated herself in her specially designated “Mom” armchair as he continued to speak. “I fall asleep in the office a lot. It’s embarrassing, but I can’t help it. I suppose Grandma was used to that sort of thing.”

“Oh, I remember quite a few times when a good healing would send her to bed for hours,” his mother smiled. “But Matt – why does he need it every day?”

Foggy shook his head, and tried not to lie to his mother, though it was a challenge. “To hear him tell it, he’s incredibly clumsy. Always tripping over something or walking into something.”

His mother frowned. “I never noticed. He never seems clumsy around us, far from it. And a few bruises shouldn’t take it out of you like that.”

Foggy shrugged. It wasn’t exactly his secret to tell, not that he didn’t trust his mother. But better to be safe than sorry. He tried to change the subject. “Mom—“

But his mother went on. “Does Matt have other friends besides you, Foggy? Anybody that could … you know … be abusing him?”

Foggy couldn’t help laughing at the idea. “Mom, believe me, nobody is abusing Matt.”

“And he’s not in … you know … that shady kind of relationship? Like Fifty Shades of Grey?”

“Mom, tell me you didn’t read that book,” Foggy begged, feeling his cheeks turn hot with sheer embarrassment. “Please, please, tell me you didn’t.”

“I haven’t read it,” she protested. “But I couldn’t help hearing all about it, even from people who should know better. Not that I’m naming any relatives.”

Foggy exhaled in relief. There were some things about parents that their children should never know. “Mom, I promise you, Matt is not in a BDSM relationship. He doesn’t even have a, um, romantic partner right now.”

He hesitated, then went on. “He, um, he thinks I don’t know, but he goes boxing. A kind of fight club. Please don’t tell anybody. Especially not those nameless relatives, okay?”

“Oh,” his mother replied, looking more relieved than Foggy felt. “Boxing. Okay.”

It was a good enough excuse that Foggy thought he could use it as a cover for a real question. “Mom, when I’m around him and he’s hurt, I can’t help wanting to heal him. It makes my hands tremble if I put it off too long! But every time I heal him, he goes back outside and gets hu-hit again. He used to take a few days off if he were really hurt—bruised, but now he doesn’t. I feel like I’m enabling him somehow, but I also can’t not heal him.”

“Oh, Foggy,” his mother sighed, then got up, sat down next to him, and pulled him in for a hug. “Sometimes you have to let people make their own decisions.”

“Yeah, but what if he gets killed one day and I could have prevented it just by not using my gift? Course I’d have to avoid him somehow to do that, but … what if?”

“I don’t know, Foggy,” his mother admitted. “I don’t think I’ve ever been in a situation like that before. I’ve always tried to live my life by doing what I thought was right at the time, and that’s the only advice I can give you.”

“Well, that doesn’t help,” Foggy grumbled.

“I know that your grandmother always tried to heal everybody who asked, everybody who needed it,” his mother went on. “Even your Uncle Ray, though she told me a time or two that she knew he never would change his lifestyle.”

“Maybe she couldn’t fight the gift, either,” Foggy said.

“Maybe. Or maybe she knew that you can’t influence what people do with what you give them. I think she said something once about being a cheerful giver, and not caring about anything else.”

“Hmm.” Then Foggy remembered what he’d originally been about to ask. ”Speaking of the gift, Mom, do you know if Grandma could heal herself?”

“I know she could heal faster, but not instantly, not like when she could heal others,” his mother replied. “She had to sleep on it, sometimes up to three nights, I think she said once.”

“Well, that’s good to know.” Foggy closed his eyes. He woke up three hours later when his parents got home, only to discover he’d missed not only the funeral itself, but also the lunch wake. As he ate the contents of the doggy bag his mother had been kind enough to request for him, he decided that he had to make some changes or his healing gift was going to ruin his life. And those changes had to start with Matt. Fortunately, there was still time for Foggy to get over to the office and talk to him, even do some work while he was there.

Full of energy and determination, he set off, rehearsing in his mind how he was going to ask Matt to come around to his place every night after he’d been out Daredeviling, so that Foggy could heal him and still get some sleep before work. Before he reached the office, though, a man swung out of a coffee shop as he passed and called out, “Foggy Nelson!”

“Frankie? Frankie McMenemin?” Foggy asked, doing a complete double take. “Whoa, you know, I thought you died a couple of years ago, but I must have got you mixed up with one of my other cousins. Good to see you again, man!”

“Good to see you, too!” Frankie replied, equally hearty. Like Foggy, he was wearing a suit, as though he went to work in an office every day, though the Frankie that Foggy knew had worked in casual clothes in the home repairs business. But they’d been out of touch for a couple of years, and anything could have happened in the meantime. Now, Frankie held out a cup. “Hey, I’d like to talk to you if you’ve got a moment, or we can walk and talk at the same time. I even got you a latte, if you want.”

“Sure, why not?” Foggy took the cup, but as he sipped, he found himself glancing over at Frankie and trying to remember the name of his relative who had died of a brain aneurysm. No matter how often he ran through his list of known relatives, though, his mind kept coming back to Frankie. And yet the man was right here, obviously alive and well. Weird.

“So, what’s new with you? How’s the law business?” Frankie asked.

“Hey, it’s great, you might have heard that I’ve got my own practice now,” Foggy said, taking another sip. The latte was a bit sweeter than he usually took, but it tasted good. “With a friend of my mine from college. Nelson and Murdock, Attorneys at Law. What about you? You’ve moved up from drywalling with your brother and now you need some legal advice or something?”

“Actually, I was more interested in your healing gift. The word on the grapevine is, Grandma Nelson gave it over to you, yeah?”

“Oh, yeah, that’s right. I’m still getting used to it. But I can tell you’re not hurt. You don’t even have a headache.”

Frankie smiled quickly in a creepy kind of way that Foggy didn’t remember ever seeing on him. “No, I’m not hurt. But I kinda wanted to ask you a favour, if you could heal somebody for me?”

“Yeah, sure,” Foggy replied. 

“Great! I knew you wouldn’t turn me down. Can you do it now? Or are you on your way back to the office?”

“Well, officially, I’ve got the day off …” Foggy considered, and mentally rearranged his plans. “I guess I can do it now, yeah.”

“Great,” Frankie said again. 

“Is it a guy or a girl? What’s wrong with them?”

“He’s been pretty badly beaten up,” Frankie said. “Think you can manage that?”

“You know, I think I can,” Foggy said, or rather, mumbled, because suddenly, all his muscles were turning weak and nonresponsive, and everything around him was starting to spin and go dark.

+++++

He opened his eyes, shut them, then opened them again and sat up, looking around wildly. What the hell was he doing on a mattress in what looked like part of an abandoned warehouse? And why was Frankie sitting crosslegged on the floor next to him?

“What the hell?” he croaked. His mouth was dry, and he rubbed his tongue against the roof of his mouth before trying again. “Where are we?”

“Hey, Foggy, you okay?” Frankie asked. 

“Do I look okay?” Foggy demanded. “What happened? Did you – did you put something in my _coffee?_ ”

Frankie smiled that smile again, the creepy one. “Yes, Foggy, I did.”

“What the fuck – why?”

Frankie extended a bottle of water towards him, but Foggy just looked from it to him until Frankie finally said, “The bottle is sealed, Foggy, I haven’t put anything in it, but fine, whatever. Anyway, I wanted to save the long explanation for later, after you’ve done the healing I asked you about.”

“How about a short explanation, then?” Foggy asked, and Frankie shrugged. 

“Okay – have you ever watched Fringe?”

“Yeah, I watched Fringe, all five seasons,” Foggy replied, remembering. “I was so in love with Astrid. And the other Olivia.”

“So you know all about the alternate universe, where there’s a different version of you? You’re in that alternate universe now. Just like Fringe. Except completely different. And that’s the short explanation, now it’s time for the healing. Come on.”

As Foggy got to his feet, he couldn’t help asking the first dumb thing that came to mind. “So, do you guys have zeppelins here?”

“Completely different from the Fringe universe, remember?“ Frankie led him past some opaque plastic sheets hanging from the ceiling, into another section of the warehouse. Foggy saw the camera first, set up on a tripod, and glanced over to where it was pointing. He could already feel that there was an injured person there, as his Murdockmeter was rising steadily. The only surprise was when he saw that five men were loosely gathered around the motionless figure on the floor, some seated at a nearby table playing cards, others on chairs either talking or staring at their phones. It almost seemed like they were guarding the injured person, but from what, Foggy couldn’t tell. 

Frankie pointed down and said, “Use your healing gift on him.”

Getting his first real glimpse of the man, Foggy whispered quietly, “Matt?” 

“You know him?” Frankie asked, but Foggy didn’t answer, looking down at the unresponsive man. Was Francis telling the truth, was this a different Matt, or was it Foggy’s Matt? It looked exactly like Matt, as far as Foggy could tell under all the blood and the swelling. There was blood everywhere, all over his face, all over his clothes where something had sliced him open again and again. He looked even worse than when Foggy had found him half dead in his apartment after a fight with a ninja. His ankles were shackled together, but his hands were free, and Foggy quickly knelt down and reached for one of them. As fast and as smoothly as he could, he let his healing warmth flow into the other man’s skin.

And Matt jumped to his feet despite the shackles, twisting Foggy’s hand in his until there was an audible crack, then striking out and hitting Foggy in the face so hard that he went sprawling across the floor. He was vaguely aware of Matt somersaulting away from the man who tried to catch him, and then Matt’s boots both landed on his leg. Foggy didn’t hear the next crack so much as feel the explosion of agony.

When he became aware again, Frankie was crouching at his side. Still completely shocked, Foggy looked beyond him to where the men had pummeled Matt to the floor, pressing his head down. Now they were moving the shackles from his ankles to his wrists, and starting to wrestle his boots off. He was still fighting, or at least wriggling, but ineffectively. Sickened, Foggy made a motion to help, but even the slightest twitch of his arm muscles sent excruciating pain through his wrist.

Well, at least he knew that Frankie was telling the truth about the alternate universe, because this could never be the Matt that Foggy knew. His Matt would have known him by his heartbeat or his smell or something, even before he’d spoken, and he wouldn’t have attacked Foggy like that, let alone hurt him so badly. It was impossible for his best friend to even think of treating him like that. Matt hadn’t betrayed him, hadn’t hurt him. It was a different Matt. It had to be. Foggy glanced back to Frankie and managed to whisper, “What the –?”

“Do you know him?” Frankie asked again.

“Is that what … you’re asking!” Not even Foggy’s voice wanted to work right; it broke in the middle of the sentence and was otherwise weak and nasal. “No ‘are you all right, Foggy … do you need an ambulance?’ Because, yes, thanks, I do … I need a hospital … and lots of painkillers.”

“You’ve got the healing gift, you can heal yourself,” Frankie said.

“No, I can’t, so fuck you,” Foggy whispered. Matt cried out, and Foggy glanced over, although even the tiniest motion of his eyes made his head hurt. They’d moved Matt, dumped him on the table with several of them holding him down, and one of them hitting the soles of Matt’s bare feet with a cane. Matt screamed again, and Foggy closed his eyes. Even if it wasn’t his Matt, it still made Foggy as sick with empathy as though it were.

“Stop it!” Foggy wanted to shout, but the words only came out as a croak.

“But do you know him?” Frankie urged.

“No!” Even though it was a different Matt, even though this Matt had hurt him, Foggy was still determined to keep his secret. Now he tried again to speak and got his voice a bit louder. “No, I thought I did, but it wasn’t him. Completely different guy. Weird, huh?”

“Yeah. Weird,” Frankie agreed.

“You brought me in to heal him … now you’re just going to … beat him up again?” Foggy asked, and when Frankie didn’t answer, Foggy said again, “Fuck you.”


	4. Chapter 4

Frankie stood up and came around to where he could lean down and thrust his hands under Foggy’s arms. Foggy screamed as Frankie dragged him away, jostling all his injuries, but although the agony in his leg brought stars and darkness to the edges of his vision, he never quite lost consciousness again. Frankie pulled him beyond the plastic sheets and back to the space where he’d woken up, then dumped him on the mattress and even pulled a rough blanket over him.

“I’m not going to heal him again,”Foggy whispered. “Not so you can keep on torturing him. So you can just take me back. We can pretend this never happened.”

He especially wanted to get back and make sure his Matt was okay.

“We’ll talk about it later,” Frankie told him. “Get some rest, you’ll need it.”

It seemed to Foggy that he did nothing lately except rest and he was starting to hate it. But he wasn’t in a position to do much of anything else except lay very still. He closed his eyes and thought of the warmth of his healing power, but it never manifested, and eventually, he fell asleep.

He woke up feeling better, not completely healed, just better enough to reach for the bottle of water that Frankie had left by the mattress. As Frankie had claimed, it was still sealed, and Foggy drank it all, then managed to sit up. It still hurt, but the pain was manageable, if only barely. There was light coming in from a window high up on the wall, which meant it was daytime, and his watch showed it was shortly before nine a.m., but he wondered if he could trust it in this strange, alternate universe. Although maybe he really had slept for a good fifteen hours. He was certainly hungry enough.

Very carefully, he pushed back the blanket and tried to get to his feet. His groan of pain must have alerted one of the guards, because a man came out from behind the plastic sheeting to check on him.

“Hey,” said Foggy. “You got a bathroom in this place? And would you mind giving me a hand?”

Surprisingly, they did have a toilet, and the man even took Foggy’s arm across his shoulders and helped him limp there. The way led across the section of the warehouse where Matt was lying on the floor, his arms cuffed behind him, one leg chained to the wall, and the four guards sitting nearby. Foggy’s Murdockmeter went straight up to eleven as he hobbled by, but he turned his head and forced himself not to notice. On the way back, though, he waved a hand in what he hoped was a casual manner and asked, “What’s up with him, anyway?”

“Just some stupid vigilante who went up against the boss and killed someone he loved,” Foggy’s guard explained. “Now he’s gonna suffer for it.”

Matt? Matt had killed somebody? This was definitely an alternate universe. Foggy got all the way back to his mattress and sank down in relief before he recovered enough to ask, “Where’s Frankie?”

“ _Francis_ is with the boss,” the guard said, emphasizing Frankie’s birth name. “Showing him the new videos.”

Foggy wondered vaguely if this wasn’t a chance for him to run away, but in an alternate universe, where would he go? He didn’t know how to get back – he didn’t even know how he’d got here. And with his half-healed injuries, he wouldn’t get very far even if he did know. He’d have to wait, get more information, and regain his strength. But, hell, he was hungry. “Any chance of some food?”

“Francis wanted to bring something back. He shouldn’t be long. You’re supposed to stay here.”

The guard went and got a chair, then sat down close to the plastic sheeting where he could keep an eye on Foggy as well as on Matt. Foggy frowned when he realized that he was under guard, too, and remembered how he’d told Frankie he wasn’t going to heal Matt again. Obviously, Frankie wasn’t going to take no for an answer.

Frankie came back about half an hour later with take-out breakfast food for everybody, and handed around the bags. To his surprise, Foggy got two of them, and Frankie even sat down on the mattress next to him as he ate. He was wearing a different suit than the day before, and Foggy felt grungy in comparison.

“You go by Francis now?” Foggy asked, and Frankie smiled slightly.

“You can still call me Frankie,” he offered.

“Just so long as you don’t start calling me Franklin,” Foggy said.

“Whatever you prefer,” Frankie said, then asked, “Still need an ambulance?”

Foggy’s bones ached sharply where they’d been broken, but he shook his head. “No.”

“Told you.” Francis looked smug. “And you still don’t know who our Black Devil is?”

Foggy shook his head again. “I told you, completely different guy. I saw him from one angle, thought I knew him, then I got closer, and nope.” He hissed as he made a wrong motion with his injured wrist, then added, “Your friend there said he was a vigilante?”

“The press calls him the Black Devil,” Frankie said with a shrug. “He claims he’s trying to make his city a better place, but when he starts killing people …”

“Funny, we’ve got a similar vigilante in our universe,” Foggy said. “They call him the Devil, too, but Daredevil, not the Black Devil.”

“Yeah, I know.” Frankie smiled a little.

“You know?”

“I keep tabs on that universe. For the boss.”

“Huh,”Foggy replied, then asked, “So, which universe do you belong to, anyway, mine or – or this one?”

“This one. Though I have spent a lot of time in your universe, especially recently, checking out the lay of the land. Undercover, so to speak. You were right, by the way, when I saw you yesterday. The Frankie in your universe did die. That’s the reason I can cross over, because I’m not there anymore.”

And if Foggy was able to cross over, too, that meant … “So, the Foggy in this universe?”

“He died, too. Right before he was supposed to go to college, he got hit by a car.”

“I’m not sure I wanted to know that,” Foggy said. “So … if I’m not here, who did Grandma give the healing gift to? Or is she still alive?”

Frankie sighed. “She gave it to our Foggy, and then he got killed. So there’s no more healing gift in this universe.”

“And you came over to our side to get it?” Foggy’s mind was starting to whirl. “What if Grandma hadn’t died yet, what if she still had the healing gift? Would you have kidnapped her, too? Dragged her over here?”

“No,” Frankie said. “No, I wouldn’t have done that.”

But he didn’t say what he would have done, he just changed the subject by indicating the remains of breakfast and asking, “You finished? Did you get enough to eat?”

“That depends on why you’re asking,” Foggy said slowly. Now that he felt slightly better, it was easier to be determined. “I told you, I’m not going to heal him again if you’re just going to keep on torturing him.”

“Foggy, I’m the only person who can take you back to your universe, and if you don’t heal him now, I’ll just keep you here until you do,” Frankie said, or rather, Francis did. Foggy could sense a definite difference between the two versions of his relative. It was unnerving, to say the least. 

“And if I do heal him? Then what? I go back, and you beat him to death? What did he ever do to you, Frankie?”

“To me personally? Nothing. To the man I work for? He killed someone he loved.”

“So ... the man you work for, why isn’t he here, doing his own dirty work? Why are you doing it for him? In fact, if that guy in there is a vigilante, trying to make his city a better place, like your friend said, and you’re trying to stop him, then that means you’re on the wrong side of the law, Frankie. How’d you get mixed up in something like this in the first place? I won’t say that all Nelsons – and all McMenemins – are perfect law-abiding citizens all the time, but this is being a career criminal!”

“You’ve got it all mixed up, Foggy,” Frankie said. “We’re not the criminals, Black Devil is. Making the city a better place is only his excuse to go out and beat people up. And then he chose the wrong person to tangle with.”

“That still doesn’t justify torture!” Foggy cried. “You should be going through the law, not taking matters into your own hands! That’s just as much being a vigilante as what you say that guy is doing!”

“The Foggy in our universe was going to study business management, not law,” Frankie said. “Maybe it would have been easier to reason with him.”

“Maybe it would,” Foggy said. “But you brought me here, and now you’re stuck with me.”

“It’s the other way around,” Frankie – Francis – replied. “You’re stuck with me. And now that you’ve seen what we can do to Black Devil, are you really going to tell me no again?”

“You’re going to torture me? Seriously?” Foggy asked. “I might not have enough strength to heal anybody after that, you know.”

“I’m not going to torture you,” Francis said in the tone of voice that implied “not yet.” “I’m going to let you torture yourself until you give in.”

Before Foggy could figure out what he meant, Francis lunged forward suddenly, caught Foggy by the arm, and pulled him to his feet. Twisting his arm behind his back, Francis propelled him through the warehouse until he was next to Matt, then spoke to the guard there.

“Chain him.”

Foggy tried to kick out, both at Francis and at the guard who was padlocking a chain around his ankle, but Francis yanked his arm up to the point of dislocation and pushed him forward until he was beyond a 90 degree angle. When the padlock snapped into place, Francis let go, giving him a shove so that he fell to his hands and knees. His Murdockmeter felt like a Geiger counter in a nuclear power station, and Foggy clenched his hands to fists to keep from reaching out involuntarily to Matt. Matt’s sightless eyes were open, but his face was slack, as though he either didn’t hear what was going on, or didn’t care.

“You won’t be able to resist it forever,” Francis said. “And we’re willing to wait.”

“How do you know so much about the gift?” Foggy asked as he crawled away. Neither Francis nor the guard made any move to stop him – why would they? The chain was only a few feet long, and he couldn’t get far enough from Matt not to feel the urge to heal.

“Because I asked Grandma,” Francis said, as though it were obvious. “Didn’t you, when you were younger? I never let my parents take me to the doctor, I always insisted on Grandma, because I was so fascinated by it.”

“You wanted the gift for yourself,” Foggy guessed.

“And then she went and gave it to you.” Francis snarled. Foggy thought he might say more, but he didn’t, just turned and stalked away.

Foggy sat there for what seemed like hours as the “feel for heal” rose in him to the point where not only his hands but all of his limbs were trembling and his entire body convulsed at irregular intervals. The really bad thing was that he wanted to help this Matt, and not just because of his gift. He wanted to heal him and set him free and make sure he got away cleanly before Francis and his gang could touch him again. But as time went on, the rational part of his mind and his faint hope that Matt – this Matt – would die of his injuries before Foggy had to give in became smaller and weaker as the urge overpowered him. Eventually, he couldn’t fight any longer, and practically threw himself at Matt’s bare foot, letting the warmth explode out of him like water from a burst balloon.

“Sorry, buddy,” he apologized as Matt rolled over onto his back. “I’m so—“

Matt kicked him in the chest with both feet so hard that he actually flew a full yard before landing, and he knew instantly that something had snapped inside him. He lay there, the pain from his fractured breastbone making him breathe shallowly when he really wanted to gasp. Caught in the compulsion of his healing gift, he’d completely forgotten what had happened the last time he’d helped this Matt.

“Stop trying to kill me!” he finally panted. The pain from his previous, only half-healed injuries was flaring up again, too.

“Stop trying to heal me!” Matt retorted in a raspy voice, the first time Foggy had heard him speak. “You wanna do something good, either kill me or let me go.”

Foggy sighed. “I can’t. I want to, but I can’t.”

“Then screw you.”

 _Yeah,_ Foggy thought as he watched the other guards get ready for another round of Whack-a-Matt. _Screw me._


	5. Chapter 5

When Foggy woke, he could feel without even opening his eyes that his Murdockmeter was up to eleven again. He could hear Matt breathing, too, whistling painfully every time he exhaled. There was also a smell of stale urine, which answered the question that Foggy hadn’t known he’d had about whether the guards took Matt out for bathroom breaks. Feeling sick both physically and mentally, Foggy sat up, wincing at the twinge in his chest, and scooted as far away from Matt as his chain would let him. Even as shackled as he was, Matt was still deadly dangerous, and he seemed to have it in for Foggy.

Foggy supposed he wouldn’t be too happy, either, if he were in Matt’s place. He fantasized briefly about lashing out at Francis in the same way, but when Francis actually appeared, bringing a fast food lunch that he handed to the guard, Foggy just glared at him for a moment before looking away.

“How long are you going to keep him here?” he asked. “Until one of you kills him by accident?”

“Until the boss says he’s satisfied,” Francis reported.

“And will he ever be satisfied?” Foggy asked. And to think he’d been worried about enabling _Matt._ Now he was being forced to enable Francis, which was much worse.

Francis didn’t respond to that. Instead, he said, “Heal him again, without being forced, and I’ll unchain you.”

“You’ll let me go free?”

“I didn’t say that. I said I’d unchain you. You can stretch your legs, sleep on the mattress instead of on the cold, hard floor, get something to eat, even go to the bathroom.”

“As your prisoner,” Foggy realized.

“Your situation can get better,” Francis said, “and it can also get worse. A lot worse.”

“You know, I always thought you were a nice guy,” Foggy said. “When did you turn into such a dick?”

“When did you turn into such a wuss?” Francis retorted. “It’s a different universe over here.”

“Yeah, I guess it is.” Foggy quickly realized that his chances for any kind of escape would be better if he weren’t chained. He didn’t know what he could do about Matt, but at least he had to give himself the opportunity to try. Making a show of his defeat, which wasn’t difficult, he shrugged, and although he hated to ask, he made himself say, “Hey, do me a favour and hold him down, would you, so he doesn’t kick me again?”

Francis smiled and said, “Sure.”

Then he rolled Matt onto his back and knelt down with one leg pushing on Matt’s throat. “Go ahead.”

Foggy moved only as close to Matt as he needed to reach out one hand and touch his foot, and as soon as the healing was over, he scrabbled hastily backwards. Matt twitched, but didn’t fight back otherwise, and when Francis stood up, he rolled onto his side, coughing and gasping for air. Having Matt choked half to death wasn’t what Foggy had envisioned when he’d asked Francis for help, but he had to admit it had kept Matt from lashing out and breaking yet another of Foggy’s bones. This Matt, Foggy reminded himself. He had to keep telling himself that it was a completely different Matt, one that had never met Foggy. He wondered vaguely if this Matt had any friends at all.

Francis was true to his word, and called the guard to unlock the chain from Foggy’s ankle. 

“Don’t start in on him until I’m back. I’ve got something special in mind for the boss,” he said, indicating the tripod with the camera, then accompanied Foggy over to the mattress. There was a bag of Chinese takeaway there, ready to eat, but Foggy had barely taken two bites before he heard the guards start their torture again. Matt grunted, then screamed, and Foggy dropped his fork, his appetite gone. Thinking he might be sick, Foggy stuck his fingers in his ears and crawled to a corner a few feet away from the mattress. Blocking the sound helped a little bit, and so he began to hum as well. Eventually, his stomach settled, and he sighed.

Post-healing fatigue was starting to pull at him, and Foggy was just about to go back to his mattress and lay down when he realized he’d been staring at a pocket pencil sharpener the whole time, abandoned in a little pile of dust and debris in the corner. He hadn’t seen one of those since, what, elementary school? He remembered how he’d loved to twist his pencils inside them, and watch the razor blade shave off thin layers of wood and graphite. Razor blade? Foggy lunged forward and grabbed the sharpener. Yes, there was one in there, tiny, but still useful. If worse came to worst, he could always cut his own throat, he thought, though things would have to be really, really bad for him to actually do it. He’d never contemplated suicide before. Hopefully, that little blade would be big enough. He stood up, positioned the sharpener, then brought the heel of his shoe down on one side so that the plastic cracked. With a little twist, he managed to pull the casing apart so that the blade was more accessible.

Matt cried out again, a sobbing, begging kind of cry that made the hairs on the back of Foggy’s neck stand up. He remembered how Matt had asked him to kill him … or let him go. Foggy didn’t think he was capable of killing anybody, especially not Matt, no matter which version of him it was. No matter how badly he wanted to help. He didn’t even think he could kill Francis when it came down to it, unless it was by accident during self-defense. Nor could he overpower all five guards, find the keys to the padlocks and the handcuffs, and let Matt go. But if he could get the razor blade to Matt somehow … Matt would be capable. Matt would even be able to slit his own throat if that was what he preferred. 

But for now, Foggy had to sleep, or he wouldn’t even be capable of slipping the blade into Matt’s hands. He stuffed the broken sharpener into his pocket and dragged himself back to his mattress, then fell asleep to the sound of Matt’s ragged screams.

He awoke feeling drained, and reached immediately for the cold food, shoveling it urgently into his mouth and only slowing down for the occasional gulp of lukewarm Coke. Halfway through the meal, he became aware of the guard watching with an amused smirk on his face, and when he’d finished, the guard mockingly asked, “Want any more?”

“You got any more?” Foggy asked, then said, “Actually, I need to go to the bathroom first. It was over there, right?”

The guard stood up from his chair, ready to accompany him, and Foggy stepped beyond the plastic sheeting. Matt was on his back on the floor, his hands at his sides. One of his arms was so badly broken that the bone was sticking out, and Foggy felt sick at the sight. He wondered if his gift was enough to heal it properly, and imagined himself trying to pull it straight. At least it would give him the chance to put the razor blade into Matt’s hand, he thought, and then he began to worry that Matt might use it against him. He had to try to get away, or at least have a plan before he helped Matt.

To his great surprise, the plan materialized in the form of Francis, waiting for him when he got out of the bathroom, and setting off Foggy’s Murdockmeter.

“You got a headache?” Foggy asked. He realized he’d felt the wrongness in Francis before, but had automatically ascribed it to Matt.

“Yeah, but don’t worry about it, I took some Tylenol,” Francis said. His voice sounded less precise than it had before Foggy had slept. “Just worry about him.”

“Did Grandma ever say anything about healing compound fractures?” Foggy asked. “Should I straighten out the bone first, or will it do it automatically?”

Francis sighed and put a hand to his head, covering his left eye. “Oh, shit, I dunno, Foggy.”

Remembering that the Francis from his universe had died of a brain aneurysm, Foggy closed his eyes and concentrated on his gift for a moment. The sense of wrongness inside Francis’ head was alarming, but it also gave Foggy an idea. He reached into his pockets with both hands, and curled the broken sharpener into his right palm.

“You hold him, I’ll pull,” Foggy said. They went over to Matt, and when Francis leaned down on Matt’s shoulder with both hands, Foggy saw him wince. Kneeling down, Foggy pressed the sharpener into Matt’s hand, sliding it into the little space where Matt’s fingers curled, then held it there. He used his other hand to grip Matt’s wrist, and then said, “One, two, three!”

Matt’s high, agonized screams and the feeling of the bones shifting was the worst thing that Foggy had ever experienced, and it took all of his self-control to keep pulling and re-aligning, until he was fairly sure that he’d got the arm more or less straight. He relaxed his grip without letting go completely, exhaled mightily in relief, and saw that not only had Matt fainted, but that Francis seemed dangerously close to it as well. Francis wobbled a bit as he pulled back, and his face was white under a layer of sweat. He sat back on his heels and took deep breaths.

All the better. Foggy let his healing gift pour out into Matt’s arm, giving it all that he had, and when he was finished, he pressed the sharpener again into Matt’s fingers, happy to feel them react again now that Matt had recovered from his faint. But then Matt tightened his hand into a fist, and Foggy scrambled instinctively backwards, thinking he was winding up for a punch. When no punch came, however, Foggy realized that Matt was simply protecting the object. He leaned forward slightly, still wary, and spoke as softly as he could. “Matt, just wait until I get away, okay?”

Matt’s face reflected confusion, and Foggy thought it was as good an answer as he was going to get. Maybe it wouldn’t work, maybe it would. It was the best he could do, and it was out of his hands now anyway.

“Come on, Francis, give me a hand here,” Foggy said, making a show of getting Francis onto his feet again and trying to make it look like Francis was helping him.

“Wait until I get back,” Francis said to the guards, and they nodded, then went back to their various pasttimes as Foggy and Francis stumbled beyond the plastic sheeting and over to the mattress. Once there, however, Foggy did not sit down, but turned Francis to face him instead.

“That headache you have?” he said quietly. “It’s the start of a brain aneurysm. The pain you feel will just get worse and worse, until – boom!”

Francis looked almost too easy to convince, but Foggy went on to press his point. “Remember that the Frankie in my universe died from one of those? You’ll die, too, if I don’t heal you. I can feel it. I know it’s coming. Take me back to my universe and as soon as I’m there, I’ll heal you. But if you keep me here, I won’t. And you know how long I can wait, but do you know how long you have? Because I can sense that that thing could burst at any time.”

So what if he was exaggerating slightly? Francis wasn’t Matt, he couldn’t tell just by his heartbeat if Foggy were lying. But, not wanting to do overdo it, he stopped talking and simply waited, hoping it would work.

Francis was silent for a long minute before finally nodding. “Okay. Come on.”

Foggy fought the encroaching exhaustion as he followed Francis out of the warehouse and down a narrow alley that led away from the warehouse. It all looked so remarkably similar to his own New York City that Foggy couldn’t help glancing up at the evening sky, but he only saw the high, white trail of an airplane disappearing into the sunset.

“No zeppelins,” he said.

“No zeppelins,” Francis agreed, sounding as tired as Foggy felt. “Told you this wasn’t Fringe.”

“Well, damn,” Foggy replied, and Francis smiled briefly.

“Here’s the portal,” Francis finally said, pointing to a blue line on the pavement, right in the middle of nowhere. 

Foggy looked down. “Is that it?”

“Nothing fancy, just a weak spot where the two universes collide.” Francis had started to draw out his S’s, almost hissing them. “And like I said, only people who don’t have a counterpart can cross over. So come on.” 

He stepped over the line … and disappeared. Grinning at the sight, Foggy stepped over as well – and very nearly walked straight into the wall of a building that had suddenly appeared in front of him.

“Sorry,” Francis said, not sounding sorry at all. “Should’ve warned you. So, c’mon, heal me now, so I can get back.”

His speech had deteriorated noticeably, and Foggy wondered if it were due to the crossing, or if death were becoming more imminent. It didn’t matter. He took Francis’s hand and let the healing warmth flow into it, feeling his Murdockmeter slide down to nothing.

“Well, that should do it,” he announced. “Now you can get back and beat the shit out of that vigilante again without having to worry about your head exploding.”

“Thank you,” said Francis, reaching beneath his suit jacket. “Oh, and one last thing, Foggy?”

“Yeah?”

Francis pulled a gun out of the shoulder holster concealed under his suit. Foggy hadn’t noticed any shoulder holster before, despite his proximity to Francis, and he felt both stupid and betrayed when he saw it. 

“Give me the healing gift,” Francis demanded.

“What? Are you crazy? If I give it to you, I’ll die!”

“If you don’t give it to me, I’ll shoot you in the leg and drag you back into my universe,” Francis said coldly, aiming the gun at the top of Foggy’s thigh. “And anyway, you won’t die. My Grandma lived for three days after she gave the gift to our Foggy.”

“Yeah, well, my Grandma died the minute she gave it to me, so if we average it out, that means I’ve got one and a half days to live if I give it to you,” Foggy snapped.

“Take it or leave it,” Francis said. “I’m going to count to three before I shoot.”

“I guess I’m screwed either way, but if I’m going to die, I want to die here,” Foggy decided, and reached out to put a hand on Francis’s head. Remembering how the gift had come to him, Foggy shut his eyes and imagined a pin jabbing a hole in Francis’s scalp. No, he thought, that wasn’t right. In his soul. A pinprick in the soul of a prick. But he’d promised, and so he opened his mouth and blew out a breath towards the tiny hole, exhaling the gift with it. And then it was gone, and he was left empty inside, empty, cold, and … dark.


	6. Chapter 6

Foggy opened his eyes to what was unmistakeably a hospital room. Someone stirred next to him, and he turned his head to see his mother sitting in one chair and his father in another one.

“Foggy?” his father asked. “Are you awake?”

“I’m alive,” Foggy realized. “I’m still alive.”

“Oh, Foggy!” His mother got up and leaned over for a hug. “Yes, you’re alive. Does it hurt anywhere? What happened to you?”

“I’m – uh – I’m not hurt,” Foggy realized. “I’m okay.”

“Well, if the strength of Matt’s prayers have anything to do with it, you’re not only alive, but you should be completely healed, too,” Foggy’s father joked.

“Matt? Where is he, is he okay?” Foggy asked before he realized he was thinking of the other Matt. His parents looked vaguely surprised at his concern.

“He’s fine, he was just here a while ago. He said he wanted to go to the hospital chapel for a while,” his mother said.

“More prayers,” his father added. “But the question is, are you okay? You were missing for two days before somebody found you collapsed on the street!”

“I’m fine,” Foggy said. “No, really, I’m fine. I think I was just sleeping after some heavy healing. Dad, quick, what do you know about passing the healing gift on? Does it automatically kill you if you do? Or did Grandma just die of old age after she gave it to me?”

His father looked at him in stunned silence for a moment, then finally admitted, “I have no idea, Foggy. Everyone I’ve ever heard of who had the gift passed it on right before they died, and as far as we know, they were all old at the time.”

“Well, that doesn’t help me at all,” Foggy said, flopping back down onto the pillow.

“Are you telling us you gave the healing gift away?” his mother asked.

“Yeah,” Foggy replied. “And I’ll tell you all about it when Matt’s here. And after I’ve had something to eat. I’m starving!”

“I’ll get Matt,” his mother volunteered. “And I’ll tell the nurses you’re awake.”

“Tell them I’ll be leaving soon, because I can’t afford any of this!” Foggy called after her.

The nurses came before Matt did, and Foggy didn’t get to see his friend until after the nurses had examined him and went off to tell the doctor. Finally, Matt was allowed in, and Foggy was pleased to see that he was sporting his usual length of stubble instead of a full three days’ worth of unshaven cheeks, and looking only slightly bruised around his chin and one eye.

“Foggy?” Matt asked, after Foggy had stared at him a little too long.

“Matt, I’m just glad to see you’re all right,” Foggy said, and Matt smiled his quick smile of polite confusion.

“Shouldn’t I be saying that?” he asked.

“Yeah, buddy, yeah, you should,” Foggy told him, nodding. “Just wait until I tell you why.”

There was another patient on the other side of the room, however, and then the doctor came to see Foggy for himself. Foggy and his father explained about the healing gift, and Foggy made up a quick story about how he’d tried to help somebody, only to be left sleeping in the street for his pains. Fortunately, one of the nurses was acquainted with the Nelson clan, and put in a good word for his story, too, so that the doctor said there was no reason for Foggy to stay in the hospital. The nurse even brought an extra lunch for Foggy to eat while they were waiting, and at last, they were ready to leave.

They went to Foggy’s parents’ apartment, and once his mother had put out some cookies and everybody was seated comfortably, Foggy told them almost everything about it, from meeting Francis and the alternate universe, to how they’d asked him to heal a vigilante again and again, and how Foggy had finally escaped. There were only a few Matt-related things that he didn’t mention, and he was sure that Matt was picking up on the omissions.

“I’m in the right universe again, right?” Foggy asked. “The universe where Frankie is dead, and I’m not?”

“You’re in the right universe,” his father assured him. “You’re back where you belong.”

“We were so worried about you!” his mother put in, for at least the fifth time. 

“I was worried that someone had kidnapped you to get to me,” Matt said slowly. “Us, I mean. The practice. But not getting a ransom note or a demand was almost worse.”

“And don’t worry about losing the healing gift,” his father put in. “Not getting you back at all would have been much worse.”

“I’m sure you won’t drop dead just because you gave it away,” his mother added. “Your grandmother was old and not as well as she liked to pretend.”

“Well, if I do drop dead, at least you’ll know why,” Foggy said, though he was starting to believe he wouldn’t.

“I don’t think you had the gift long enough for it to have such an effect on you,” Matt mused. “I mean, it hasn’t even been a week. Your grandmother had it for many years.”

That sounded very good to Foggy, and he decided to cling to the theory as though to a life buoy.

“Yeah,” his father agreed. “So don’t worry. You’ll be fine, Foggy.”

“I wish Francis would drop dead, not that convenient things like that ever happen,” Foggy said. “Because they don’t deserve to have a healing gift in that universe if that’s what they’re going to do with it.”

“I can’t imagine young Frankie getting mixed up with people like that,” his mother said, shaking her head. “He was such a nice boy, or at least that’s what his mother always said.”

“He said it was a different universe over there,” Foggy rememebered. “Hey, he even said that the other me was going to study business management instead of law!”

“Now that’s definitely a different universe,” Matt said with a smile.

“Sorry, Mom, that I’m not a butcher over there, either,” Foggy teased. “No free ham.”

His mother laughed a little, then said, “Well, speaking of ham, that’s exactly what I have in the fridge for supper. You’re staying of course, Matt.”

“Of course, Anna,” Matt said. “Do you need any help?”

“No, well — yes, now that you mention it. You and Foggy can both peel potatoes.”

Foggy glared as hard as he could at the back of Matt’s head, willing him to sense his displeasure as he got up and followed them into the kitchen. Without even looking, his mother said, “And take that look off your face, Foggy.”

After supper, Matt offered to walk Foggy home to his own apartment. Foggy hated to admit that he was glad of the company, or that he was secretly pleased because Matt’s blindness gave him an excuse to stick out one arm for Matt to hold onto.

“Did Francis say anything about Fisk?” Matt asked as they walked.

“Nope,” Foggy replied. “He never said who he was working for. It was always ‘the boss.’ It could have been anybody.” 

They walked in silence for a few minutes before Matt said, “You’re limping and you’re starting to breathe funny. Did you get hurt over there?”

The question caught Foggy by surprise and he caught his breath, missed a step, and gave Matt a brief but intense stare before he realized what he was doing. Finally, when he thought he could speak normally, he said, “Yeah … yeah, I got hurt. It healed a little bit, while I still had the gift, but, uh, it’s not completely healed. Might take a while now. Damn, it’s not fair. You can still sense whenever there’s something wrong with me, but I’ve lost my Murdockmeter completely. For all I know, you feel as bad as I do, probably even worse.”

“I’m —“

“Don’t you dare say ‘I’m fine,’” Foggy threatened him. “We both know you’re lying every time you say that.”

“It’s not lying,” Matt protested. “’Fine’ is a relative term.”

Foggy groaned. Eventually, they came to his building and he heaved himself slowly up the stairs. His leg ached, and his breastbone made every breath an exercise in agony.


	7. Chapter 7

“Here, let me hang up your coat, you go sit down,” Matt said, reaching out, and Foggy flung himself away in panic. He stumbled over his second pair of dress shoes, wobbled for a moment, then fell against the wall. Turning so that it supported his back, he slumped there, panting with the aftermath of terror. “Oh, g-d, oh, g-d.”

“Foggy?” Matt was standing motionless, his face creased with concern, but not daring to do anything more than say his name.

When he could straighten up again, Foggy stumbled into his living room and sank down into his favourite armchair. He wanted to lean forward and hold his head in his hands, but the ache in his breastbone made that impossible, so he leaned back instead. Matt followed, very slowly, as though he were testing every footstep. “Foggy?”

“It’s okay, come in, sit down, I’m sorry,” Foggy babbled. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s not okay. But you have nothing to be sorry about,” Matt said, as he came in and sat down on one end of the couch, as far away from Foggy as he could get. “Do you want to talk about it?”

When Foggy didn’t answer right away, he went on. “That vigilante in the other universe, that was me, wasn’t it? Daredevil.”

“Black Devil. They called him Black Devil over there,” Foggy said. “But yeah -- no, it wasn’t you. It was somebody who looked like you and sounded like you, and even went around in black clothes trying to make his city a better place, but it wasn’t you. Because you would never have –“

He stopped. Matt waited, looking as though he knew he didn’t want to hear what was coming.

“You would never have attacked me,” Foggy went on. He still remembered the shock, the sense of betrayal, how long it had taken to convince himself that it wasn’t the Matt he knew.

“What did I do?” Matt asked.

“It wasn’t you, all right?” Foggy realized he was shouting, and lowered his voice slightly. “It wasn’t you! You didn’t hurt me! It was that other—that other Matt. The one who never met me. Because Francis—Frankie – said that I died in that universe before I even went to college. We were never friends there because I – because I got killed. You didn’t know me.”

“So Black Devil probably thought you were one of the bad guys,” Matt guessed.

“Yeah,” Foggy said, latching on to the idea of calling the other Matt by a completely different name. Why hadn’t he done that before, while he was over there? “Yeah. The first time I healed him, he just reached out and broke my wrist, snap. Then he did a kind of somersault and landed on my leg and broke it, here, right under my knee. The next time he kicked me in the chest so hard I went flying. That broke my breastbone – it still hurts.”

Matt looked as horrified as though Foggy were telling him something he’d done while sleepwalking. “Oh, g-d, Foggy, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.”

Foggy looked away. The apology sounded so sincere and so right, and yet it was coming from the wrong person. He had to remind himself who was speaking. “It wasn’t you, Matt, you’re not the one who should be apologizing.”

“I wish I had your healing gift so I could make you feel better,” Matt said. 

Foggy groaned as he remembered how he’d had to use his gift. “I just hope you – I mean the other Matt – Black Devil – I just hope he was able to do something with that pencil sharpener I gave him. When I think of all the damage that Francis could be doing to him right now and always using that damned gift to heal him up afterwards, it makes me wish it never existed!”

He trailed off, and Matt asked, “Pencil sharpener?”

“Oh, I didn’t mention that part, did I?” Foggy realized. “Um, I found a pencil sharpener in a corner of the warehouse, and I broke part of the plastic cover off so that the razor blade was exposed. I took it for myself at first, but then I gave it to Black Devil the last time I healed him. We’d had a little fight, well, it wasn’t really a fight, it was more like just words. I told him to stop attacking me every time I was trying to help, and he told me to either kill him or let him go. But I couldn’t, I couldn’t do either of those things. Francis was keeping me prisoner, too, and, you know, it was a _healing_ gift, not something I could use to make him have a heart attack or a brain aneurysm or something! Giving him that tiny little razor blade was the only thing I could do. Maybe he was able to use it to overpower all the guards, I don’t know.”

“Maybe he decided that suicide wasn’t such a sin after all,” Matt mused. “From what you said, he was in a pretty hopeless situation. If it had been me, I would have seriously considered …”

He made a movement of his hand towards the jugular vein under his left ear.

“I hope he did,” Foggy said. “I really, really hope he did.”

After a moment, Matt said, “I wish I knew how to make you trust me again.”

“You mean, not react like I think you’re going to hulk out on me?” Foggy was rewarded by one of Matt’s half-smiles. “Look, I’m sorry, man, it was unexpected, and – I’m tired and probably a little traumatized, and I’ll feel better to-morrow.”

“I think you’re more than just a little traumatized,” Matt said. “But I’m sure you will feel better to-morrow. Do you want me to go, so you can get some rest?”

“No, I want to chain you to the radiator and keep you here so that I know you’re not going out there and getting captured by somebody who’s going to torture you to death!” Foggy exploded.

There was a long, awkward silence.

“Sorry, that sounded way too kinky,” Foggy finally said. “And it’s okay, Matt, I don’t have any chains or anything like that. Not even a bike lock.”

“I wasn’t worried that you did,” Matt replied with another little smile. Foggy wished he felt like smiling back.

“But it would help if you knew I were safe,” Matt went on.

“Yeah,” Foggy admitted. 

“Will you believe me if I promise I won’t go out to-night?”

Foggy looked at him. “You’d do that? For me?”

“If it will help, yeah,” Matt replied.

“You’re not just doing it because you’re secretly hurt?” Foggy asked, fixing him with a glare he wanted Matt to sense.

Matt hesitated. “Okay, in the interest of truth and getting you to trust me, yes, that’s one very small factor, but it would mostly be because of you. Ninety percent because of you.”

Foggy rolled his eyes. “I knew it. I knew you were hurt. It’s like my grandma had some kind of ESP telling her that you needed somebody at your side with a healing gift, that’s why she gave it to me. And now, oh, shit, I’ve given it away and I’ll never be able to help you again. I used to worry I was enabling you, but now I’d give anything to have it back, because you’re always hurt!”

The realization made the loss hurt more.

“I’m not always hurt,” Matt protested.

“Matt …” Foggy said, drawing the name out accusingly, then waved his hands in defeat. “Never mind. I don’t want to think about that now.”

“We were actually talking about me staying in to-night,” Matt reminded him. “And how I can help you trust me again.”

“I do trust you, Matt, but yeah, it would really help me feel better if you stay in for two nights,” Foggy said. “And then we’ll talk.”

“Okay,” Matt agreed. 

Foggy stared at him in astonishment. “You promise?”

“I promise.”

“Even if Fisk breaks out of jail and his escape route leads right by your apartment?”

Matt hesitated, then said, “I promise, Foggy. Two nights.”

“Wow, I didn’t think you’d go for that,” Foggy admitted.

“I’m pretty sure he won’t break out of jail,” Matt said. Then he asked, “Do you want me to stay here so you can make sure that I don’t break out?”

“Nah, buddy, that’s all right,” Foggy said. “I don’t want to be tripping over you in the middle of the night or anything.”

But after Matt had left, Foggy felt so strangely alone that he almost wished he’d asked his friend to stay. He had to remind himself that he probably would have literally tripped over Matt a couple of times already, and have another panic attack while doing it, so it was better if Matt wasn’t there. Then he began to wonder if Francis knew where he lived, and spent a long time convincing himself that Francis would have no further interest in him now that he had the healing gift for himself, and anyway, if Francis had wanted to kill him, he could easily have done it while Foggy was out cold.

Francis. He was so different from the Frankie that Foggy had known. How had he got caught up in something like this? And why did it have to be one of Foggy’s relatives who was torturing Matt –Black Devil – in that alternate universe? Would Frankie have gone the same way, if he’d lived? For that matter, would Francis have gone the same way, if the other Foggy had lived? Foggy wasn’t sure what kind of influence his other self could have had on Francis, just as he wasn’t sure how much influence he’d had on Frankie, though he was certain that it was very small. But, in the same vein, could the other Foggy have had any influence on the other Matt? Would they have met up at all?

Foggy couldn’t stop thinking about the many possibilities, and had to keep reminding himself that it was all speculation and far removed from reality. Sometimes you couldn’t affect things. Sometimes you could. Sometimes you were out of the equation – he thought of the other Foggy – and sometimes you were in. Sometimes you got pulled in by somebody else, thank you, Francis. And all too often, life was pretty shitty, especially when other people were actively doing things to make it that way, thank you _again,_ Francis and especially your nameless boss. How could his grandmother have even thought of being a cheerful giver in situations like that? Foggy fell asleep wondering if that was her way of fighting back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sometimes you can't affect things. Sometimes you can. But when it comes to fanfic, you can always be a cheerful giver -- of feedback! :-)


	8. Chapter 8

At work the next morning, Karen jumped up with her arms outstretched as soon as Foggy opened the door.

“Foggy! We were so worried!” She came around the desk and hugged him hard, and Foggy tried not to wince at the pressure on his breastbone. “Are you all right?”

“I’m, uh, getting better,” he said.

“I came to see you in the hospital yesterday morning, but you were asleep. I met your parents, they were really nice,” she said, finally letting go. “They said somebody found you on the street and called an ambulance, but what happened?”

“Would you believe my long-dead cousin showed up and pulled me into an alternate universe?” Foggy asked. Karen gave him a skeptical look, but he went on. “Because that’s exactly what happened. Just like on Fringe. Did you ever watch Fringe, Karen?”

“Of course I watched Fringe! I mean, Joshua Jackson, Foggy! I had such a crush on him when I was younger.” Then Karen’s enthusiasm faded a little. “But that was a TV show, not real life.” 

“Yeah, that’s what I thought, too. But I had this cousin who died about three years ago from a brain aneurysm. When he showed up, I thought I’d got him mixed up with another cousin, but I hadn’t. He was from this alternate universe. He took me over there, and they had a vigilante there, too. They called him Black Devil, and they wanted me to heal him. Except I didn’t realize that they were torturing him, and they wanted to use me to keep things going.”

Karen’s mouth hung open. “Foggy, that’s terrible!”

“I know! And I couldn’t get out until I’d given the healing gift to my cousin. He was pointing a gun at me, he would have shot me! As it was, he just left me there in the street to sleep it off, and I guess that’s when they found me and took me to the hospital.” Foggy expected Karen to have some questions, but the one she asked left him surprised.

“So you just left him there? Black Devil?”

Foggy remembered Karen’s adoration of their universe’s Daredevil. “Yeah, but … the last time I healed him, I managed to slip him a tiny little razorblade from a pocket pencil sharpener that I found. I don’t know if he got away, or killed himself, or what, but it was the only thing I could do to help him. And before you ask, no, I couldn’t use the healing gift to stop his heart or anything like that. I mean, it was a _healing_ gift! I’m not Darth Vader, using the Force to choke people to death.”

“Oh.” Karen sighed a little in relief. “Okay. Sorry, I didn’t mean –“

“Yeah, well, if you sprain your ankle again, you’re shit outta luck. But on the bright side, at least I won’t be falling asleep in the office anymore.”

“I guess that’s the bright side,” Karen said. “But your snoring was kinda funny.”

Foggy smiled with her. “That’s how I got my name. My parents said I snored like a foghorn. I’m sure Matt almost killed me, our first week together.”

There was a little bang at the door and Matt came in, asking, “Are you telling Karen the foghorn story?”

“Yup,” Foggy said. He saw that Matt was holding a white paper bag in one hand. 

“And Foggy was just saying that he wouldn’t fall asleep in the office anymore,” Karen repeated. 

“Yeah, no more healing gift, no more need for R&R,” Foggy said. A little more sadly, he added, “And no more Murdockmeter to tell me if you tripped while taking out the trash, or hit yourself in the face with your cane.”

“Murdockmeter?” Karen asked.

“Yeah, that’s what I called it when I could sense that someone was hurt,” Foggy explained.

“I think you also called it the feel for heal,” Matt remembered, and Karen laughed aloud.

“Hey, with great power comes great responsibility to find a cool name for it,” Foggy protested, and Karen laughed again.

“Well, whatever you called it, you won’t need it to-day,” Matt said. “Because I made it all the way here without injury.”

“That’s great!” Foggy exclaimed. He’d already been eyeing Matt up and down, checking for signs of fresh bruises or lacerations, but there were none.

“But I wanted to say I’m sorry,” Matt said. “Because you lost the gift, I mean. So I bought you a little piece of cheesecake. You like white chocolate raspberry, right? Can I give it to you, or should I put it in the fridge?”

Foggy realized that Matt had been standing there practically motionless all the time they were speaking. He hadn’t let go of his cane, nor had he taken off his coat, and he certainly hadn’t made any move to extend the white paper bag to Foggy. Instead, Matt was asking, or perhaps warning him, as though he were afraid that any movement on his part would startle Foggy into a reaction. A wave of shame washed over Foggy as he realized that Matt had really bought the cheesecake to say sorry for triggering him the night before. It took an effort for him to reach out anyway.

“Here, give it to me, I’ll put it in the fridge while you get your coat off,” Foggy said, and watched as Matt carefully handed him the bag. Everything went smoothly, no reason to freak out. To cover his embarrassment, he said, “You know I love white chocolate raspberry, but don’t think you have to buy it for me every day.”

“Just this once,” Matt said, and looked as relieved as Foggy felt when the exchange passed without incident.

But by the end of the day, Foggy had noticed a difference in the way Matt acted around him, in the way he hesitated to get too close, to reach out without announcing his actions, even to speak without thinking it over first. And once Foggy had noticed it, he couldn’t stop seeing it, and it rapidly became annoying. Finally, after Karen had gone home, and Matt was approaching the door of his office with exaggerated care one too many times, Foggy cracked.

“Matt, stop that!” he snapped, and when Matt froze in confusion, he went on. “Yeah, that! Stop treating me like I’m some kind of unexploded bomb that’s going to go off if you get too close!”

“I just don’t want to scare you, Foggy,” Matt replied slowly.

“I know! I get that! But this is just as bad! Remember how you told me once you hated it when people danced around you like you were made of glass? You’re doing the same to me right now!”

“I am?” Matt asked, then his shoulders slumped slightly. “Yeah, I guess I am. I’m sorry, Foggy. I should have realized.”

“Hey, buddy, don’t beat yourself up over it, just stop,” Foggy told him, standing up and coming around the side of his desk. “Now get over here and give me a fist bump, man.”

Matt grinned, took the three steps necessary to reach Foggy, and put his fist out horizontally. Foggy bumped it, pleased with his lack of reaction, but then, he’d seen it coming. Still, he told himself, it was a step in the right direction.

“My dad always used to say, it’s not how you hit the mat, it’s how you get up,” Matt said.

“Seriously?” Foggy asked. “And then he names you Matt?”

He gave Matt’s shoulder a mock blow, and Matt groaned. “Don’t think I haven’t heard all those jokes before.”

“Yeah, sorry.” But he wasn’t, really, and he knew that Matt knew it. “Go on, you were saying?”

“I’m just glad you’re doing your best to get back up.”

Foggy smiled, but then Matt extended his hand for a mock blow of his own, and Foggy jumped back, his heart suddenly racing. “Don’t!”

After several deep breaths, when he’d recovered somewhat, Foggy turned and slammed both fists down onto his desk. “Shit! Shit-shit-shit!”

“I’m sorry,” Matt said. 

“Do that again,” Foggy snarled.

“I’m sorry?” Matt was obviously not sure what he meant.

“No, do the arm thing again. Do it again and again and again until I don’t react any more!”

“I don’t think that’s the way to get over it,” Matt said. “And anyway, you’ll be expecting it now.”

Foggy went back to his chair and slumped down in it as much as his injury would let him. “Shit. You’re right. I hate this.”

“Do you … want me to rub your shoulders?” Matt offered hesitantly.

“Why?” Foggy asked, instantly suspicious despite the tempting offer.

“I was thinking that maybe I could, um, show you that you can associate me with good things, too? Not just scaring you,” Matt explained. Ah, so that was his reasoning behind the cheesecake. It hadn’t merely been an apology.

“So every time you startle me, you wanna show me a good time?” Foggy teased, just to see Matt’s reaction.

“That’s one way of putting it,” Matt teased back. “I know you like back rubs and stuff, so I could offer to do something nice like that every time it happens.”

“Well, it sounds better than you tiptoeing around, scared that I’ll see your shadow and freak out,” Foggy decided. “Sure, Matt. Come here and give me a good ol’ Murdock Massage.”

Smiling, Matt came around to stand behind Foggy’s chair and began to rub his shoulders, softly at first, then slightly harder. It felt good, and Foggy was starting to relax when Matt asked him to lean forward.

“Ow, shit,” Foggy said. “Sorry. I moved wrong.”

“Your sternum still bothering you?”

“Yeah. I guess I got used to the healing gift pretty quickly, the way it speeded up my own healing, I mean. Never mind, it’s not your fault. You can give me another shoulder rub to-morrow. As part two of this one, I mean. And a new one if you startle me again. And cheesecake. Because I am totally going to take advantage of you now.”

Matt laughed a little. “Okay, Foggy. But for now, why don’t you go home? You’re way too tense, you should relax and get some sleep.”

“And so should you,” Foggy shot back. He turned in the chair, then stood up.

“I will,” Matt said. “I promised. Come on, get your coat, I’ll walk you home.”

Foggy frowned at the hint of overprotectiveness. “Maybe I want to walk you home,” he said, emphasizing the pronouns, and Matt laughed again.

“You’re the one who got kidnapped, Foggy,” he said.

“And I just spent the weekend watching somebody who looked exactly like you get tortured,” Foggy reminded him. “So if we want to watch out for each other and keep each other safe, we’ll just have to live here at the office, and be together at all times if we ever go out. We’d have to shop together, get coffee and bagels together, go Daredeviling together …”

Matt’s expression was a mix of amusement and sheer horror, which made Foggy smile. “That’d put a cramp in your style, wouldn’t it?” he went on. “Having me tag along when you’re out being a vigilante?”

“You wouldn’t be able to keep up,” Matt said.

“Nope,” Foggy agreed. “I’d just be a liability. A ball and chain around your ankle, holding you back.”

And then Matt did smile. “I didn’t say that. I’d never say that about you.”

“But it would be true. And I’d probably end up having more panic attacks because of it. Watching you get your ass kicked every night, not to mention what might happen if the bad guys saw me and decided to attack your weak spot. So it’s a dumb idea. Almost as dumb as wanting to walk me home to keep me safe, and then leaving me there alone. Almost as dumb as me wanting to walk you home to keep you safe, and then leaving you there alone.”

“I promised you I wouldn’t go out to-night,” Matt said. “I will keep that promise.”

“I know. I appreciate it, but it was stupid of me to ask. Because what about to-morrow night?” Foggy asked. That was something he’d been thinking about a lot. “I know you’ll be putting on that suit and jumping off your roof as soon as it’s dark. You told me you can’t help it. It’s like the healing gift, it just builds up in you until you can’t resist anymore, and you have to do it. And I know what it’s like to be forced to do something you don’t want to do. I don’t want to force you the same way I was forced.”

He stopped talking, and Matt didn’t say anything, either, because there was nothing for him to say. And Foggy realized something in that moment, something that had been knocking around in his brain all night and all day and had finally crystalized into words he absolutely had to speak.

“You know what, Matt? You don’t have to walk me home. You don’t even have to stay in to-night. Because I already know I trust you. I told you that yesterday, and it’s still true. Even more true. I’m just reacting to that other … to Black Devil.” 

All the time he was talking, Foggy had been powering down his laptop and packing it in his bag. Now he lifted the bag to his shoulder. “And I’ve been thinking. Shit happens, and you just have to deal with it, you know? I’m in this situation now, but I want to make the best of it. So I get startled every so often, so what? You give me some cheesecake or a backrub, or both, and we’re fine. So you go out and get hurt again, so what? I can’t heal you anymore, which I really hate, by the way, but I still want to help you, so … maybe I can do something else.”

Matt smiled a little. “Like what?” 

“Well, right now, I can give you my permission. My blessing, if you want to call it that. I won’t hold you back from something you have to do. So it’s okay. I think I’ve pretty much gotten over the fact that you kept this from me. Yeah. I have. I’m over it. I’ve completely forgiven you. I never even think about it anymore. All I think about lately is why you have to go out.” Foggy found he was waving his arms. “And now I think I know, Matt. It’s because there are people out there like Fisk, who can get people killed. And I don’t know who it was that corrupted Francis, but if they can get to good people like my cousins, even in an alternate universe, then they have to be stopped. So go on. Go out and be Daredevil and don’t worry about me.” 

Foggy stopped gesturing before he’d stopped talking, and reached out at the end of his little speech to take Matt’s hand and place it on his arm. As he walked Matt out of his office and across the reception area, Matt said, “But I do worry about you.”

“I know, but hey. A little cheesecake here, a little backrub there, and it won’t take long at all for me to get used to associating you with good things. Worry about me like that all you want!” He grinned. “And I’ll do stuff for you, because I wanna return the favour, and maybe you’ll start to associate me with good things, too.”

“What good things?” Matt asked, curious. They stopped just inside the door of his office. 

“Different good things,” Foggy said, shrugging as he tried to think quickly. “Unless you really want back rubs and cheesecake, too. Or doughnuts. Or apple pie. Whatever you like.”

“I like back rubs occasionally,” Matt said. “But not when I’m …”

He let his voice trail off and looked embarrassed. 

“Not when you’re too bruised and battered,” Foggy guessed, and Matt nodded. Foggy went on. “What about me not complaining about every time you get hurt? ‘Cause that’s a good thing, right? Not making fun of your horns or any other part of your costume, that’s another good thing. Not making you feel guilty for going out in the first place. I could take a first aid course, learn how to suture, for those times when Claire’s out of town. And if we ever make enough money, I’ll have a hot tub installed in your apartment so you can soak all your aches and pains away. I’ll give you whatever help I can.”

“Those are good things,” Matt agreed, nodding.

“I’d help you hide the body,” Foggy went on. “If you ever needed to hide a body, that is.”

Matt frowned slightly at that, and Foggy quickly clarified, “You know, if anything ever went wrong.”

“Okay,” Matt replied, still dubious.

“I’d even give you a razor blade, if you ever needed one.”

That made Matt smile again, and he said, “I know you would.”

“But just to be clear on one thing, Matt, if we ever both get arrested, I definitely draw the line at being your prison bitch.”

When Matt laughed, Foggy added, “It would have to be the other way around. ‘Cause if we’re ever in prison, I’d need every advantage I can get, and having Daredevil be my bitch would be the biggest one I could think of.”

At that, Matt leaned back and laughed the loudest, most delighted laughter that Foggy had heard from him in weeks, maybe months. “Oh, Foggy.” 

“So go on, then. Get your stuff packed up, get your coat on, go home, then go out and fight crime,” Foggy told him. “I’ve got your back.”

Still grinning, Matt leaned forward and hugged him, just hard enough not to irritate his breastbone. “Thanks, Foggy. Thank you.” 

The End

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for reading!


End file.
